GayNetSA

When you have an ensemble cast with big names like Jennifer Aniston, Ben Affleck, Drew Barrymore, Scarlett Johansson and Jennifer Connelly, you hardly expect the best thing about “He’s Just Not That Into You” to be the lesser-known Justin Long and Ginnifer Goodwin.

But this pair are so sweet, so fresh and so funny together and in really all of their scenes. I loved Ginnifer in “Mona Lisa Smile” and have enjoyed her work in “Big Love” but have never seen here so absolutley luminous even as she is playing a character who for most of the movie at least, is quite pathetic when it comes to men.

She plays Connelly’s sister and both work with Aniston at an ad agengy and they work off each other well. Connelly is married to a man with a wandering eye played by a never-more-sexy Bradley Cooper and she has many funny moments as a control freak very out of touch with her emotions.

Aniston and Affleck are a couple together seven years. He won’t marry her. There’s a break-up and I won’t tell you how it goes but it’s a nothing role for Aniston who has done everything here many times before. But Affleck has his moments and does manage to make the most out of his few scenes. I’ll confess, he is the only character who managed to make me cry – briefly!

So this is all about the screwed up relationships between men and women and all the misread signs etc. You wonder, what is in it for the gay audience besides ogling at Cooper – especially in a bed scene with Johansson? And Affleck is not unpleasant to gaze at. But we find out pretty early on when the real estate guy (Kevin Connolly) pining after Johansson has an open house in a gay neighborhood and two gay (one of them is played Bill Brochtrup who seemed sexier than I remember) explain the shorthand between two guys in determining whether or not he’s into you.

Then there’s Barrymore’s character who works as the ad salesperson for a gay newspaper who is unlucky in love (her role is not much but the scene where she complains about all the new technologies is a keeper) and who has a gaggle of gay guys in the office (one of them is played by the deserves-better-than-this Wilson Cruz) who gab with her about her bad dates and near-misses etc.